LCD Poised to Drop 20% by Years End

[Brett_Tabke]

[story.news.yahoo.com...]

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world's top flat-screen maker, said on Thursday it expected prices of liquid crystal displays (LCD) to fall as much as a fifth by the end of the year on growing supply.

[peterdaly]

Maybe it's getting close to time to upgrade my 21" Sony Trinitron CRT.

LCD prices are getting close to or passing CRT prices of a few years ago.

[Brett_Tabke]

Just paid $99 each for a pair of 19inch crts. So lcds, have a long long way to go yet. (compares to $700+ for a 19inch lcd or around $400 for a good 17incher)

[peterdaly]

I paid $600 or so for my 21" CRT in probably the late 90's. I may consider a good 19" LCD as a replacement.

[Macguru]

I guess, I will wait a bit before I upgrade to a 30 incher [apple.com]...

[Brett_Tabke]

You can buy a 42inch plasma for about $2750 US. Many of them have vga inputs.

[Macguru]

I wonder how many aspirins I will need at night after staring at potato sized pixels all day...

What is plasma screen maximum resolution 1200 x 1024? Admit it, at 2560 x 1600 this babe is unique...

[Brett_Tabke]

I think some of the plasmas can do higher than that can't they mac?

[Macguru]

I am not sure about plasma screens. But a 20 % drop in prices for LCD screens will certainly be a good motivation for a lot of people to switch.

[Kirby]

Plasmas are on the way out.

[steve]

Plasma and LCD suit different applications.

Plasma - great for home cinema above 40in. where the light levels in the room are carefully controlled.
Disadvantages - high power consumption, limited lifespan, reliability.
Plasma is losing ground to LCD panels as their size, picture quality and price continue to fall.

LCD - better for general use as a television or monitor. High contrast ratios (500:1) produce reasonable pictures in most lighting conditions.
(LG have just announced a LCD panel with 5000:1 contrast ratio!)
Advantages - lowish power consumption, good lifepsan, reliable (if you accept the odd faulty pixel!)

However, the future is likely to be PLED (polymer organic light-emitting diode) displays. They offer full spectrum colour, lower power consumption than plasma/LCD and higher reliability.

PLED is likely to be very cheap too. It uses a manufacturing process very similar to ink jet printing, so as volumes go up prices are going to plummet.

[SEOMike]

Plasmas are on the way out.

Why's that? Can't get good enough quality for the price? What's going to replace them?

[ggrot]

Plasma will cost you a ton in power bills from what I've heard. Not a personal experience or scientific study, but it is something to consider.

If you don't care about resolution, just screen size - good DLP projectors are in the sub $1000 range these days.